The Office of Spiritual Life is set to host a Spring Break Discipleship Conference from March 15-20 at Hume Lake, where students at California Baptist University can meet with other universities to learn more about discipleship.
The discipleship conference will be spent with individuals from Challenge Ministries at CBU, California State University at Chico and University of Southern California.
Brian Zunigha, director of Campus Ministries, said the Spring Discipleship Conference will have main sessions on what it looks like to follow Jesus and be a disciple, as well as workshops on how to help others grow in Christ.
“(At the conference), you don’t just listen to the speakers and never see them again,” Zunigha said. “They’re eating lunch with you, sitting down at the table, and you really have access to amazing people to really be able to interact and learn from them.”
Speakers at the conference will include Gordon MacDonald, an author and pastor for more than 40 years, and Chuck Madden, a speaker involved with Navigators, including a website dedicated to Christian discipleship training resources.
“We heard (Madden) a few years ago, and I’m excited to hear him again,” Zunigha said. “He is a great model to look at who didn’t go into a full-time ministry but lives his life as someone who is a disciple for Jesus and makes disciples.”
Jonathan White, Challenge staff member, said the conference is a great time for students to hear from godly speakers who will help shape their understanding of what it means to be a disciple and to make disciples.
“Making disciples is talked about a lot at CBU, but I think sometimes we’re not really sure how that looks practically,” White said. “The speakers are guys who have a track record of making disciples.”
MacDonald is a book author and an editor for Leadership Journal, a Christian magazine that offers insight on ministry leadership.
With an involvement with the campus ministry at the University of Oklahoma, Zunigha said getting the time to be intentional was something that shaped his life in a personal way.
“I remember one of the most impactful conferences I went to and I was really challenged to look at my life as a disciple of Christ, and I was challenged to become serious about my faith,” Zunigha said. “I got serious about Scripture memory and to be in the Word consistently at letting that shape how I thought about life.”
For $275, the conference will include food, transportation and lodging. For students who cannot afford the conference, financial assistance is available.
“It’s a great opportunity to put a stake in the ground and say, ‘I’m going to be about things like this for the rest of my life and I am going to invest in my life spiritually,’” Zunigha said. “There are conferences I have been to that I look at and am excited about those because I developed a pattern in my life to look for opportunities to grow. So I challenge students to invest in their spiritual lives.”
The last day to sign up for the Spring Discipleship Conference is Feb 27.
